Fragments
by Byakko
Summary: Sasha, Milla, and Raz have finally ventured into Kris Tam's mind...which is shockingly 'sane'. That is, until Raz has a confrontation with the literally insulting tsetse flies... 111 hits, 6 reviews...I know you're all there, I can see your corneas!
1. Prolouge Talking with the Big Head

**A/N:** Standard disclaimers, yada yada yada... Oh, and I haven't actually played the game (loooong story that one) so sorry for any possible laspe of character. I'm mostly guessing from cutscenes so cut me some slack!

**PS:** Oh, and warning. Yes, this indeed contains an OC. I say this now, I make GOOD OCs. My track record is flawless. I don't make Mary Sues, I loathe Mary Sues. I don't make Paulinias (whatever they are) and even if my OC gets some screen time, it'll be worth it.   
Think about it, don't you want to know about the mental patients you run through? It's not the same if they don't have a story. My character, has a story. And there's lots of dialouge at first.

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"You must be joking!" Truman Zanotto snorted apprehensively, striding about his office somewhat vigorously; extreme agitation was apparent in his expression.

"I have evaluated our options," continued Sasha Nein, seated at the front of Zanotto's desk, "Even our best mind infiltrators, working in tandem under simulation-perfect conditions, are simply not sufficient."

Zanotto snorted again.

"What about the elements of the field itself? The intimidation of a full squad of the agency's exemplary mind-hackers _bearing_ down on the old coot!" He bellowed with great aplomb, his mind full of preparations for kevlar, SWAT support, those big double-blade helicopter-things...and maybe a taser.

"In all aspects, negligible." Sasha said simply.

Snort!

His agitation returned, and with greater force. Zanotto made a quick return to his swivle chair and slumped into it with passion.

Zanotto leaned back for a few moments, hands clasped and eyes squinted in thought; Agent Nein waited patiently, his mind on his calculations and its inevitable conclusion.

"Quantity over quality," Zanotto suddenly began, flipping forwards to face Sasha, "We put every person we can spare right out in full assault and-"

Sasha simply shook his head; Zanotto did not bother disputing the protest.

"Murray Thatch has encountered and dispatched of five intermediate agents within approximately 4.2 seconds of each other. He encountered and then dispatched of three senior agent within approximately 6.4 seconds of each other. All the while elluding their respective team mates and avoiding harm or containment throughout the entirety of the encounter."

Zanotto grunted at the dismal report.

Sasha continued uninhibited.

"Further attempts on arrest/capture met with similar results. Further investigation revealed that the amount of time in between the assaults on each agent has dropped to, at best, 2.3 seconds. It is concluded that the continual encounters with the agents have led to Mr. Thatch to assess and learn to subvert the configurations of the advanced mental blocks agents are trained to put up."

At this point, Sasha detracts from the written report, addressing Zanotto directly.

"It is ultimately concluded that any attempt to use the conventional resources of the agency would be...a waste of time."

Zanotto chuckled ruefully, hearing the argument all over again but still not coming up with a good rebuttal.

"So we use our 'unconventional resource' hm? You make our high security mental-criminal facility sound like a thinktank!"

"In many ways, it is," replied Sasha nondescriptly.

Zanotto chuckeld again, with little humor; his flicking hands barely concealed his...agitation.

"We need someone who, like Murray Thatch, uses such an alien method of mind-hacking that conventional mental blocks and trained agents cannot defend against it at all."

"Right, and that 'someone', _like_ Murray Thatch I might add, should and **is** locked up in very much the way we want Thatch in!"

Sasha made a faint sigh; he was sure he would win out eventually, but Zanotto's apprehension was a slow-to-tranverse hurdle.

"And I'm not going to let her **out**, to get another psycho just like her **in**!" Zanotto veribly roared, slamming his fist into the desk.

_'Why is he so...agitated?'_ mused Sasha, as he sought a way to speak to the fuming Head of the Agency to calm him down.

Something crossed Zanotto's face at that point, he grinned and Sasha felt a tinge of apprehension.

"You, you two, you took her in," he began, looking up at the agent before him, "You and Milla."

Sasha felt that this was not going in a good direction.

Zanotto smoothed back his hair neatly with one hand as he straightened up, "You two got her in, even when a whole squad got beaten up, tossed about, sent back with their tails between their legs!"

_'Tails? Do we really need that expression?'_ Sasha's mind wandered as he followed his chief's line of thought.

"I could just send you and Agent Vodello, backed up with several squads of course, to bring that coot in as well, can't I? You've had the experience, you're the best we cou-"

"With all due respect sir," Sasha suddenly said sharply, cutting Zanotto off, "Even if Murray Thatch walked right into the Psychonauts Headquarters, we would still not be able to confront him. He's mind cannot be hacked, but he can hack ours in a heartbeat and turn any agent against another within seconds. We cannot physically subdue him because he masks himself with invisibility and levitation and is psychically undetectable. And even if we _do_ manage to land a hand on him, it can be seen from Agent Whedon's 9 month hospice stay and ultimately tragic end on 11th November 2005, that Murray Thatch is a highly accomplished psychic in many other areas."

Zanotto became silent, surprised from what could be considered an 'emotional outburst' from the usually cool agent.

"Yes, I and Agent Vodello did managed to bring her in, but I would like to clarify that it was mostly the coaxing by Agent Vodello which calmed the girl down and made her agree to come to the agency of her own free will," Sasha continued, calmer now once he's gotten his key point across.

The chief grunted, shaking his head in continual disapproval.

"You forgot something, haven't you?" he murmured, "She commited 'mental-suicide' right after she was contained. Going on 5, 6 years now. Her mind's long gone, we just keep her alive and around to make sure if she wakes, she goes right back to sleep."

Sasha knew this; it was another obstacle, and a fairly large one at that, but one which had a fair greater success rate than the alternative.

"This is my final proposal," at this, Sasha pulled out the last page of his stack of reports and notes, "I, and selected individuals, shall enter Prisoner HT-982675J1's mind, and attempt to salvage enough of her original mentality and personality so as to convince and/or use her to neutralize the rogue mind-hacker known as Murray Thatch, of New Jersey," he read off.

Zanotto took the proposal, reading it outloud between clenched teeth. He snorted.

"'Selected individuals' eh?"

Sasha nodded, "Naturally, having had the closest contact with the prisoner, Agent Vodello would accompany me."

"And having had extensive experience with fractured minds of madmen," Sasha continued, "I suggest that Agent Razputin accompany us as well."


	2. Chapter 1 This will be Interesting

**A/N:** I didn't know the asterisk sign doesn't come up when I uploaded to So now, thoughts will be enclosed like this '...' and in italics.

**Chapter 1 - Delving into the Unknown**

_Flashback - 6 years ago..._

Sasha was down on one knee, right hand on his temple and the other arm stretched out in front of him towards his target. The strain was clear on his face but his concentration held; as did his psychic attack.

The girl; a young, gaunt and almost wild-looking girl of 18, maybe 19; held a solid but stiff stance some 5 meters away from him. Her teeth was clenched tight, her lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl. Her single visible left eye, the other hidden behind long locks of hair, was focussed on the agent with a fierce scowl. She groaned her frustration, finding herself locked in place at that spot. Her feet had dug deep impressions in the dirt from her constant strain. Her arms curled at her sides in preparation to strike but like the rest of her, locked in place.

Her fists; they remained dangerous. Her lower arms and fists were hidden from view, surrounded as they were by a psychic enlargement of them, formed from her telekinetic abilities. Even in the locked battle of mental strength she was having with Agent Nein, her fists were still ready to wreck punishment.

"Milla, now would be a good time to...ugh...contain the girl...more 'permanently'. She's starting to foam at the mouth."

_'And my knee is starting to enflame,'_ he continued in his head. The girl managed to score a straight, powerful sucker punch to his knee-cap during the early parts of the struggle and Sasha was sure it had popped.

Milla Vodello was hovering nearby, for a while relaxing in the combined assault the two of them had coordinated on the girl once they managed to gain some distance from her.

This 'catch and restrain' mission had become a long, tedious and painful struggle. It was hard enough to track the girl down. Scanning for her with clairvoyance and short-ranged telepathy proved a hit-and-miss method. The girl's mind was almost impossible to track. It could have been because of her powerful mental defenses, or an abnormality of her mind; either way they had to make do with what little they could glean from those brief moments of successful contact.

The girl, on her part, appeared to have no problem keeping track of _them_. She was after all, as the files said, an adept and naturely gifted 'mind-hacker' who could detect any mind within a football field away; let along powerful psychic minds that were like beacons to her.

Thankfully, as the file also reported, the rest of her abilities were sorely under-utilised or even non-existent. She could not levitate and made do with physical running, leaping, climbing and crawling. She had a lack of any long-range defenses; untrained in pyrokinetics and having extremely short-range telepathic abilities. And she obviously knew nothing of invisibility, otherwise they would never have found her once she gained some distance from them.

No; once the two agents managed to catch up to her and had physical eye contact with the target, it was a one-sided cat-and-mouse chase. She knew they were coming, and despite telekinetically enhanced leaping and climbing and even destruction of physical obstacles in her escape, she could not outrun them once they levitated right on top of her.

That's when the next part of the file proved to be accurate; she had one mean punch.

Apparently, while the girl never had any training in the final points of psychic abilities, she managed to develop immense and imaginative ways to use pure telekinetics.

Upon being approached by the agents, and foremost by Agent Nein, the girl whipped up her telekinetic fists around her own real fists, and displaying some impressive agility, proceeded to physically attack the two agents.

Agent Vodello managed to evade via levitation but being at the forefront and caught off-guard, Sasha received a painful disabling punch to the gut, and then another to the knee.

The girl seemed to want to re-double her attack while Sasha was still crouched in agony on the ground. Her psychic fists had grown larger and she wheeled back for another blow. That's when Agent Vodello made her initial move, pinning the girl down with a psychic blow.

She proved to have strong mental defenses however, and using whatever preternatural ability she had to she began whiddling into Milla's mind, much to her alarm.

"Sasha!"

Agent Nein was clambering back up to his feet, before collasping with a groan from the almost useless knee. He began to drag himself away from the struggling girl while striking at her as well.

Divided between the two trained agents, the girl finally appeared to be on the defensive.

Still shuffling backwards, Sasha shouted out to his partner, "Don't let her touch you! Her psychic powers are tactile based, including her mind invasion skills!"

This was quite possibly the girl's greatest weakness and also greatest strength; one which she revealed in the last attempt a bunch of junior agents tried in incapicitating her. Her mental defenses were a match for them, her own physical agility made her impossible to focus on, and she knocked each of the agents silly and unconcious one by one until the last, whom she grabbed and mind-hacked into before letting slip into sleep. From there, there was a connection found amongst the details of her exploits and her need for physical contact for fast mind infiltration.

And now, they finally had her. Stuck between the two agents' assault she was finally vulnerable. But once Milla relaxed Sasha had to pick up the slack and from 5 meters away he felt the girl pushing against him with a vengeance.

"Hurry!" He urged, feeling the beginnings of a definite mind invasion beginning to happen; a needling, almost squirming sensation. Like something struggling to crawl under the crack of a door.

Milla had in her hands, a specially engineered Psitanium collar. Psitanium normally strengthens the abilities of psychics, perhaps even strengthen the mind as whole. But this particular collar was engineered with an impure form of Psitanium which made it do the opposite, nullifying, even dulling, the psychic abilities and minds of whoever was wearing it.

She prepared to levitate quickly to the girl and clasp the collar around her neck before she had a chance to garner her strength and break out of Sasha's restraint.

_'Poor darling,'_ Milla thought with a sadness in her mind, knowing the sudden incapitation would be rather traumatic.

As if sensing her slight thought, the girl turned her eyes to Milla as she approached her.

"Leave me be," she said simply.

"I'm afraid we cannot, Krisellen Tam," replied Sasha, silently relieved from her halt in hacking his mind. Despite his attempts, he found that he was hardly slowing her down, if at all.

"I'm sorry, darling," began Milla, hovering near but high above her, "You've caused too much trouble across the country."

Kris smirked, "Nothing so terrible, nothing dangerous. I do what I need to survive, Milla Vodello and Sasha Nein."

"I got your images and names from the last agent your 'agency' sent after me. I know enough to not want to get captured by you, or anyone!"

"Your mind infiltration abilities are too dangerous. You've used them to commit criminal acts, warped several civillian minds, and also resisting arrest by Psychonauts agents," iterated Sasha.

Kris scoffed at the accusations.

"Right. 'Criminal' because I blacked out everyone in a convenience store to get a batch of tampons. 'Warped' because I erased myself from their minds, but trust me they're still as sick in the head as I found them. Oh, and the Psychonauts agents," she gave a quick glance at the both of them, "You were all just asking for it when _you_ came after _me_."

She raised a fist threateningly when she noticed Milla edging nearer. Sasha quickly buckled down again to concentrate on restricting her movements.

"But darling, it still isn't right," Milla began warmly.

"I'll do no harm, I just want to be left in peace," Kris growled angrily, starting to thrash at the invisible and mental restraints about her. Sasha felt it, she was starting to invade his mind again.

_'Milla, please hurry,'_ he quietly thought to his partner, the slightest hint of panic in his mental voice.

"You might really do someone harm," Milla continued urgently, lowering herself quickly in preparation to clasp the collar, "You need training, guidance, help."

"What, so I can be used by the government like you two? Like all the others that came after me? I just want to left alone and free!"

"No, darling," Milla said in a compassionate tone, "So you won't hurt yourself, or anyone else. There are so many things you could learn to control, or learn to do. Great things, things that will let you help so many people."

Something passed through Milla's mind, a memory, dark and sad. Despite under being under psychic restraint, despite being still a distance away from the levitating Brazillian, Kris felt the thought in all her sensitivity. She felt the feeling just as initimate as Milla, although the agent did not know. Kris had no intention of invading Milla's mind, but all thoughts are always, in some manner open, to the natural mind-hacker. Especially poignant, painful thoughts.

Milla's words and thought gave her pause; and it gave in to the girl's own dark memories.

"You came too late. You should have come earlier," Kris said quietly, under her breath.

Sasha felt the girl stop. He felt her withdraw those mental tendrils that were undermining his mental defenses.

_'She's letting her guard down,'_ he surreptiously thought to his partner.

_'No,'_ Milla replied, with a happy tone to her voice, _'I think she's considering our offer.'_

_'We have regulations,'_ he replied, _'We cannot take her in like this.'_

_'I know,'_ Milla inwardly sighed, sadness returning to her voice, _'I know, darling. But she shouldn't have to wear this, for all her crimes. She's just young and alone.'_

_'So were many of us, but none of us were so...dangerous,'_ Sasha told himself.

Kris appeared tired, finally relaxing and becoming calm. Her telekinetic fists shrunk and final disappeared from her arms. She peered at the two agents with consideration, but no malice.

"I keep running, you guys keep coming," she said in measured tones, "The more I run, the more and faster your agency sends you and others like you to get me. I could beat them all, even you two maybe, and still be running, and running...and running..."

She looked up quickly, eyeing the collar in Milla's hands.

"That...I gotta wear that, right," Kris stated.

Milla nodded apologetically, "Yes, darling."

Despite mental urgings from Sasha, who was still a good distance away and still restraining the girl although she was no longer presenting any struggle, Milla Vodello took a chance and came back down to the ground beside Kris.

"So I'll learn to control my abilities, learn new ones too," Kris continued, studying the collar that was presented before her.

"Yes, darling," Milla replied. She was tenderly pushing back the girl's hair, though careful to not touch her skin.

"I promise, dear," she continued, holding the collar up and ready.

Kris made no reply, but she suddenly wore a sad expression as she looked into Milla's gentle smiling face.

She seemed to want to say something, but stopped. Instead, she straightened her neck, and with a fierce and haughty expression, she said, "All right."

_...end flashback..._

"So, you put the collar on her, and brought her into the agency?" Raz asked as he walked alongside Agent Nein and Agent Vodello.

They were walking down a long hallway, walking towards the very prisoner that was subject of Sasha's and Milla's recount of her capture.

"I wish we hadn't too, the poor dear," Milla said with a sigh, "She wanted to come in willingly."

"Regulations. And...we would not have known of her true intentions," Sasha explained, with a sense of unease despite himself.

Raz pondered this with his ever lively curiousity; the novelty of such a relatively young and rarely gifted psychic mind-hacker. Until he realised something...

"But didn't you promise her she'd be able to train, to learn the stuff Psi cadets do at Whipsering Rocks?"

"The Camp hadn't be set-up yet, and, well," began Sasha's explanation.

"I did promise her that," cut-in Milla, but she immediately became quiet and her expression, troubled.

With no further words from Milla, Sasha then continued, "After replacing the restraining collar with a slightly less powerful one so she'll become lucid, Krisellen revealed that, well, she'd rather not be the 'government's lackey', in her own words."

_"Animals in a zoo. Trained creatures of the circus! Caught, beaten and trained to do the whipper's work!"_

They were at the last door at the end of the hallway. Sasha had a hand on the door and Milla was still quiet, lost in her own thoughts. Raz was listening intently.

"Needles too say, she proved far more powerful under stress than we'd thought. Emotional energy perhaps. Regardless of the collar, she found enough mental strength to telekinetically rip off her collar with her hands. Of course, there were plenty of agents in the room, including me and Milla."

Sasha slowly pushed open the door as he continued, "Even though she could take-out some of us, she knew that if she had trouble defending against two senior agents, there was a low probability of her being able to defeat an entire squad."

_"You'd do anything, won't you, to get the 'agent' you want? I'm not safe, not like this, not when I'm still...all...here..."_

"I admit, her actions still baffle me...all of us...even now," Sasha told Raz, completely throwing open the door.

The room was darkened and silent; except for the LED lights and beeping from the monitoring equipment at the head of the bed.

Sasha telekinetically flipped the light switch, and light flooded the room abruptly.

_"My freedom, is not safe, until I'm of no use. My freedom, would have to lie within. Goodbye." Kris grinned._

There, on the single bed in the tight, padded room, lay Krisellen Tam. Dressed only in a patient's gown, and her hair long but trimmed. Her forehead, neck, arms and legs, all connected to the monitoring equipment.

Motionless except for slow, steady breathing; she lay with a heavy deadweight on the bed.

"Mental defragmentation. She must have been preparing for it all along; perhaps already started the process the moment we put on the lesser collar," Sasha explained as all three of them approached her bedside.

Milla looked down at the girl with a horrified and agonized expression. She made a small sound in her throat. Raz looked at her with concern for a moment, but Sasha continued and his attention was drawn back to the stone-like figure on the bed.

"It is mental suicide. She pulled apart her own mind from any discernible sane anchor, broke up her psyche into fragments of unknown quantity and type. I do not understand how she came to learn how to do it, but she did; and her reasons are still baffling."

Raz looked in wonder, and some form of horror.

Up close, the girl appeared entrophied, naturally from the lack of movement for 6 years, save for the occasion shuffle to prevent bed-sores. Both eyes were now covered with hair, and the unnatural stillness of her entire body made her look more dead than alive.

Milla had quietly approached the head of the bed, near the girl's face, and was gently and sadly stroking her head.

Sasha gave a small sigh.

"Her brain waves show that her mind is still active. It's erratic, but 'alive'. She has lasped into this coma without any sign of recovery or wakefulness since then."

"Didn't anybody, try to enter her mind to help her? Or use Psitanium to draw her back? Anything?" Raz queried in a confused tone.

Sasha shook his head.

"Truman Zanotto was head of the Psychonauts Agency, even then; and he had a very similar attitude to Krisellen Tam as he has with Murray Thatch in the present. Aggressive, and without mercy. No, it was decided that in fact, Ms. Tam's current state is ideal for containment purposes; and she has been kept here, for observation, and to ensure that if she does not wake up."

"A cruel thing to wish on someone so young and innocent," whispered Milla.

Shock crossed Raz's face then, as well as some growing suspicion.

_'Is she really that dangerous, or is it just because she didn't want to be Psychonaut...'_ he thought to himself, studying the slightly shielded face of the mind-hacker before him.

Sasha motioned to the guard that had followed them to the door.

In a few moments, three chairs were brought in, but Milla opted to sit on the bedside instead.

"However, now there is Murray Thatch. Which means, Ms. Tam must be brought back in as whole a piece as we can manage."

Reaching into his pocket, Sasha brought out one of the infamous doors through which all three of them had used so many times before to enter the minds of the unhinged.

Except at least those times, they had some idea of what they faced there.

"Sasha, where did Kris came from?" Raz asked with sudden apprehension, watching as Sasha placed the door on the girls' forehead.

"From what we know, she worked and lived in a zoo most of her life."

"Oh," Raz stated as he and the two other agents prepared to enter the metaphorical doorway, "Like a circus, only with wild animals that have to be kept behind moats and fences instead of a big ring."

Soon, he felt his astral self being pulled into the comatose girl's mind.

"This should be interesting," were his last audible words.


	3. Chapter 2 Welcome to Africa

**Chapter 2: Why Tseste Flies Are Really Hated**

"Sasha, we _are_ in her mind right now, right?"

"Yes."

"..."

"Okay, so why does it look like we're in Africa," continued Raz, as he started to swat at some tsetse flies.

The sun was baking down on them at its high noon summit.

_The sun._

A fully functioning, realistic sun; shining bright and hot down on normal looking grasslands, normal looking trees, normal looking rocks and pebbles and dirt and tsetse flies.

"Actually, why _does_ everything look...normal?" realised Raz as he brushed the red dust of his pants where he had hit the ground.

He looked all around him; and all he saw was a sweeping vastness of savannah and dry grass plains.

Sasha Nein had made a cursory glance at their surroundings and was pondering its significance. Milla Vodello had levitated upwards to get a better look at the environment further away from them, and to stop any potential danger.

"Everything. The foilage, the fauna. Even heat and atmosphere," Sasha thought aloud, a cigarette hovering near him.

He walked further away from the small cluster of bushes and trees that they had found themselves in. They seemed to be near the junction between desert and forest. Rolling miles and miles of plains stretched out before them, and a little behind them, the darker shade of tall and large branches of forest.

"A perfect recreation of the African savannah. Compelling."

Raz followed the agent out of the cluster. Most of the tsetse flies he had managed to telekinetically sweep away. He even made some caught on fire before they started whizzing wildly about and got into his hair. The smoke from his smouldering hair managed to drive the rest away though.

Except for one.

"Does it...get away you stupid bug! ...Does it mean anything? Maybe she just likes Africa, AGH!"

Raz started flailing his hands about as the bug begin to fly wildly around his head like an ace-pilot; dodging, weaving, all the time close enough to annoy Raz with its incessant buzzing.

"Leave me alone you stupid bug!" He shouted with frustration, now hopping about in an effort to shake the damn thing off.

"Bite me!" The bug replied back in a high buzzing voice before continuing on in an incoherent babble of buzzing noises.

"It would seem that Ms. Tam's mind is shockingly sane. Or that she has no taste for the abstract," Sasha answered, completely oblivious or ignoring Raz's battle with the fly.

Giving up, and the bug triumphantly parading in a circle around his head, Raz replied dejectedly, "The bug is cursing at me."

"Hm? Oh come now, the bugs will leave you well alone soon enough," replied Sasha absent-mindedly as he noted that Milla was returning to the ground.

"No, you don't get it; the bug is really cursing at me!" Raz tried to explain before he is cut off by a long thrill of high-pitched buzzing.

"Ah!" He shook his head from the sound. The sound of squeaky laughing started up in his left ear.

"Did you...did you just stick your tongue out at me!? Bugs don't have tongues!" He yelled with frustration as he began swiping his hand near his ear.

"That's called a raspberry, nanook!" Buzzed the bug before making zig-zagging lines right in front of Raz's face.

"A van, or a bus, coming towards us. It's moving quite fast and - just what is the little boy doing?" Milla asked, looking past Sasha at the wildly motioning Raz, who was now alternatively waving at and slapping his face.

"What? Oh, it must be the heat," Sasha answered dismissively as he spied the vehicle's long and thick dust-trail gradually appearing larger as it came towards them.

"Balding monkey, balding monkey, balding _circus_ monkey!" Squeaked the bug, sometimes dotting his insults with the shrill of more raspberries.

"DIE!" Screamed Raz before Milla grabbed and settled him down.

Sasha, deciding it would be best to meet any possible personal demon or not with a degree of preparation, stood close to the bushes and his mind prepared.

The bus, a small bus, came into view. It was old, weathered and rested from the elements. It was a rickety bucket of loose bolts and grinding metal, shuddering and rolicking on its axles as it came up on a travelled dirt path. Its paint had long ago peeled away and the grays and browns of its metal chassis made it blend into the backdrop of the savannah.

That is, if not for the billowing dark gray smoke it spew generously behind it.

"There, there, dear. Just ignore it and it will go away!" Milla consoled Raz, whom she held tightly about the shoulders so he would not start to swipe at his face again.

"I can't ignore it! It's...it's...it's bugging me!" He exclaimed, his eyes tracking the annoying creature as it flew in lazy orbit around his head.

"...Butthead..."

"SHUT U-mmfff!" Milla clamped her gloved hand over the boy's mouth as she turned to talk to her partner.

"Wave it down!" She shouted over the growing roar of the bus' bucking engine.

"We don't know what is!" Sasha found himself yelling back as the vehicle approached.

Suddenly he realised that if it _did not_ slow down; then there was a good chance that it was going to careen past them and potentially damage them; if not kill them from its sheer lurching.

He motioned for Milla to back-up into the bushes but he had to shield his fast as dust and smoke blew around him in massive choking cloud. The bus gave a long screech and a great heave-ho as its driver jammed its brakes.

"Sasha!"

Milla had held onto Raz as the bus almost came barrelling on top of them, but she finally released him once the bus had come to a more or less complete stop (it still shook and trembled terribly from the engine's churning).

She felt her way through the dense and noxious fumes, following Sasha's hacking coughs until she found him.

She supported him as he climbed to his feet, and began clearing away the smoke telekinetically. The sound of the bus' door opening and closing with a slam, and the scuffle of moving feet could be heard.

"Oh gosh, are you okay?" Came an earnest voice from behind the thinning veil of black smoke.

"Who are you?" Queried a newly calmed Raz as he approached the bus.

All the smoke had finally knocked the damn fly out, or better yet, killed him.

Finally, the fumes cleared away, and standing before all three agents was a short, he was barely taller than Raz himself, portly man, with no discernible features. With a large, thick and white moustache, and heavy white eyebrows. Only his round-button nose was visible, and he wore a bus-driver's cap on his balding head of white hair.

"Why, my name's Herb; short for Herbert course," he answered congenially, going up to Milla and Sasha and shaking their hands warmly.

"Sorry to stop so close like that; most people's run up the path a bit when they plan me to stop."

"You drive a bus through here all the time?" Asked Raz, pointing at the vehicle in question.

"Sure do! Never know what, or who, you pick up along these ways," Herb chortled, "I run a transport-and-tour operation. Well, not really run. I just come and go along this way, always have."

"We are looking for a Krisellen Tam. Do you know where, or how, we could contact her in this...place?" Ventured Sasha.

_'You should be more wary of approaching the figments in a person's mind, Razputin,'_ cautioned Sasha.

Raz looked up at him, shrugged and thought back, _'He's not selling cookies that explode,'_ but he turned to the quaking vehicle and become apprehensive.

Herb's eyebrows turned down, as if in sadness, "I don't know where she is. I find bits of her everywhere, but never really her."

"Bits of her, as in...?" Began Sasha but Herb immediately started again, with renewed cheerfulness, "Well, no sense in us staying here, right? Like I said, I'm a running a transport-tour service, no charge!"

He banged a fist against the metal frame of the bus. The folding door shuddered and snapped open with a clang, revealing the inside of the bus.

"I'll show you around this here parts; take you to some place a little friendlier than this place'll be after dark," he suddenly made his voice and spoke confidentionally to Raz, the closest, "You're real lucky I happen to come this way, you know?"

"Uh, really?" Raz replied.

Herb gave a swift nod, "Yup."

He motioned them to all quickly get into the bus. Sasha adjusted his sunglasses that got skewed, and Milla just found the man adorable and beamed him a smile as she climbed up the stairs after Sasha. Herb gave a nod with his cap and after Raz had boarded, pulled with great effort on the sticking metal door.

Just as Raz was about to help him, the door snapped shut with a louder clang than it opened with, and he watched the top of Herb's head; his cap; as it made its quick way around the front of the bus.

There were few comfortable seats in the bus. Most of them had springs or the foam showing; and some of the windows were stuck. Sasha and Milla ended up on one of few decent seats left on the bus. He was nearest the window and had propped his arm up onto the opened window sill; considering the scenery outside and cigarette hovering near at hand. She was clasping his other arm and leaning against him.

Raz stayed near the front of the bus. He was still standing up, looking through the little window into the driver's compartment.

With some comical effort, Herb clambered up the side of the bus and onto his driver's seat. The wheel was set low for him, and he placed his feet on large long blocks were tied to the brakes and accelerator. The stick was ridiculously long compared to him and he pulled it with great effort as well.

"You better take a seat, boy," he warned as he pushed the lever into gear.

But then, Raz noticed something.

"Wait, how can you drive when you can't see over the dash-"

**BANG!**

With a great lurch and a noise not unlike thunder erupting from a pistol, the bus roared forward in a rush that rivalled a race car.

With equal speed, Raz tumbled down the aisle with a continous yelp and slammed into the back of the bus, pinned by the G force.

"Sweetie, are you all right!" Milla called in concern.

A small tiny black figure hovered near Raz's still dizzying concussed head.

"Ha, douche!" Squeaked the tsetse fly as it proceeded to do a victory dance on his head.


End file.
